Licensing

CueStudio 2 uses a subscription tied to your account at cuestudio.show; by the week, the month or the year, whichever suits the work. Every plan is the same application with every feature in it, and covers three Macs: sign in on each one and install it.

Choose Help ▸ Account & License.
Enter the email address and password you subscribed with, and click Sign In.
Click Use License on This Mac.

Signing in is all the app asks for. Creating an account, changing your password and managing your subscription happen at cuestudio.show. "Forgot password?" in the License window opens that page for you.

That Mac is now licensed. Stay signed in on the Macs you are using: signing out gives the seat back, and CueStudio 2 stops running on that Mac until you sign in and activate it again. CueStudio 2 asks you to confirm before it does that.

Being signed out is not the same as signing out. A Mac that has been offline long enough for its sign-in to lapse keeps its licence and keeps running: only a deliberate sign-out hands the seat back.

#Demo mode

Without a licence you can run CueStudio 2 for 30 minutes at a time. Click "Try 30-Minute Demo" in the License window. A countdown sits at the top of the window while it runs.

The demo is a full copy of the application: build cue lists, play audio, and watch video and image cues on the Virtual Monitor. What it will not do is drive anything outside this Mac. These stay off until you activate:

DMX in and out, Art-Net and sACN, so nothing reaches a lighting rig
OSC in and out
Network timecode, in and out, so Art-Net timecode neither leaves nor drives this Mac
Session sync, so you cannot host or join a backup Mac
Video output to a display, and NDI and Syphon

Switch one of them on and CueStudio 2 tells you it is disabled rather than leaving you to debug a rig that is working perfectly.

When the 30 minutes are up, every playing cue stops, all outputs go quiet, and a screen appears with links to buy. No cue will fire from any source after that, including OSC, MIDI, DMX, the web remote and AppleScript. You can still save your show from that screen, and if you have already bought, sign in there to carry on.

There is no waiting period. Quit CueStudio 2 and open it again for another 30 minutes, as often as you like.

#Running offline

Once a Mac is activated, CueStudio 2 never needs the internet to run. The licence is stored on the machine and checked locally at launch, so a rig with no network still starts normally. When the Mac is online, CueStudio 2 quietly checks in, that is how a renewal reaches it, with nothing for you to re-enter.

#Seats and moving between Macs

The License window lists every Mac using your licence, with the date each last ran CueStudio 2. To move your licence:

On the Mac you are leaving, click Deactivate This Mac. The seat is free straight away. Signing out does the same thing and leaves the account signed out as well.
If that Mac is not to hand, sign in on any other Mac and click Free Seat next to it in the list. You can also do this at cuestudio.show/account.

Freeing a seat from another Mac is a handshake, not an instant change. The Mac you freed keeps its licence until it next connects to the internet; at that point it hands the licence back and stops running CueStudio 2. The seat stays in use until then, and shows as Releasing in the list, so your licence is never live on more Macs than you have seats. If that Mac is only switched off or off the network, open CueStudio 2 on it when you next can and the seat frees itself.

If the Mac is never coming back, sold, stolen, or dead, use Force release on the Releasing entry. That frees the seat at once, and accepts that the Mac could keep running CueStudio 2 until its licence expires.

#Renewing and billing

Manage your subscription, payment card, and invoices at cuestudio.show/account. When a renewal goes through, the new expiry reaches your Macs the next time each one is online: you do not need to re-activate.

#Updates

CueStudio 2 checks for updates automatically and prompts to install them. Updates are included in an active subscription.

#Older licence keys

Licences bought before accounts existed still work: open Help ▸ Account & License and click "Have an older licence key?". Link the key to an account at cuestudio.show/account when convenient, after that you sign in like everyone else.

If activation fails, check that the Mac is online and that you are using the email address you subscribed with. Support: support@cuestudio.show

#Terms and privacy

The subscription terms and the privacy policy are linked from this window and from CueStudio 2 ▸ About CueStudio 2. Both open cuestudio.show/legal in your browser.